Religion, Politics, and Identity in a Changing South Africa

Religion, Politics, and Identity in a Changing South Africa
Author: Abdulkader Tayob, Wolfram Weisse, David Chidester
Publisher: Waxmann Verlag
Total Pages: 252
Release:
Genre: Religion and politics
ISBN: 9783830963288

What is the role of religion in society? In the wake of September 11, public intellectuals provided easy answers. According to some, religion was the problem, others commented, religion was the solution. Generally, public debate about the force of religion in society has been organized by either/or propositions. Religion is a force for either freedom or bondage, for either peace or war, for either mutual recognition or antagonistic polarization. Analysis of religion and social change has also tended to be framed in terms of oppositions that inform research agendas and public policy. In this book, authors from South Africa, the United States of America, the Netherlands, and Germany test these oppositions.

To the Ends of the Earth

To the Ends of the Earth
Author: Allan Heaton Anderson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2013-01-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199911827

No branch of Christianity has grown more rapidly than Pentecostalism, especially in the southern hemisphere. There are over 100 million Pentecostals in Africa. In Latin America, Pentecostalism now vies with Catholicism for the soul of the continent, and some of the largest pentecostal congregations in the world are in South Korea. In To the Ends of the Earth, Allan Heaton Anderson explores the historical and theological factors behind the phenomenal growth of global Pentecostalism. Anderson argues that its spread is so dramatic because it is an "ends of the earth" movement--pentecostals believe that they are called to be witnesses for Jesus Christ to the furthest reaches of the globe. His wide-ranging account examines such topics as the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles, the role of the first missionaries in China, India, and Africa, Pentecostalism's incredible diversity due to its deep local roots, and the central role of women in the movement. He describes more recent developments such as the creation of new independent churches, megachurches, and the "health and wealth" gospel, and he explores the increasing involvement of pentecostals in public and political affairs across the globe. Why is this movement so popular? Anderson points to such features as the emphasis on the Spirit, the "born-again" experience, incessant evangelism, healing and deliverance, cultural flexibility, a place-to-feel-at-home, religious continuity, an egalitarian community, and meeting material needs--all of which contribute to Pentecostalism's remarkable appeal. Exploring more than a century of history and ranging across most of the globe, Anderson illuminates the spectacular rise of global Pentecostalism and shows how it changed the face of Christianity worldwide.

Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa

Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa
Author: Adam Ashforth
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2005-01-15
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 9780226029733

Large numbers of people in Soweto & other parts of South Africa live in fear of witchcraft, presenting complex & unique problems for the government. Adam Ashforth explores the challenge of occult violence & the spiritual insecurity that it engenders to democratic rule in South Africa.

Artificial Walls. South African Narratives on Conflict, Difference and Identity

Artificial Walls. South African Narratives on Conflict, Difference and Identity
Author: Claude H Mayer
Publisher: ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2005-03-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3838254317

This book offers far-reaching insights into perceptions of conflict in South Africa. Claude-Hélène Mayer’s approach is remarkable, because she imparts the recollections of numerous people from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The author captures the essence of about one-hundred interviews reflecting disparate attitudes towards social changes in the post-apartheid Republic of South Africa. Unexpected statements – for example, with respect to the continued existence of internalized apartheid – are carefully analyzed and hermeneutically understood. At the beginning of the research, presumptions might have raised expectations for the similarity between the narrative interviews. However, it becomes clear during the reading of this work that each interview was itself unique and each created a unique situation between the interviewer and the interviewee, inviting the reader to listen again and again to the spoken and analyzed words. The thorough, months-long field stays, from 1999 until 2004, emphasize the researcher’s exhaustive effort better to understand the perspective of the interviewees. In addition to the book's research-related merits, its data can increase the cultural competence of those readers who are interested in information on specific predominant-cultural standards in present day South Africa. Readers can more fully appreciate how the people in South Africa live a special, dynamic form of their unmatched “unity in diversity.”

African Theology, Philosophy, and Religions

African Theology, Philosophy, and Religions
Author: Chammah J. Kaunda
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2020-11-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1793630283

In African Theology, Philosophy, and Religions: Celebrating John Samuel Mbiti’s Contribution, contributorsexplore John Samuel Mbiti’s contributions to African scholarship and demonstrate how he broke through the western glass ceiling of scholarship and made African-informed and African-shaped scholarship a reality. Contributors examine the far-reaching implications of Mbiti’s scholarship, arguing that he shifted the contemporary African Christian landscape and informed global expressions of Christianity. African Theology, Philosophy, and Religions analyzes Mbiti’s scholarship and shows that his theories are malleable and fluid, allowing a new generation of scholars to reinterpret, reconstruct, and further develop his theories. This collection brings together contributors from a wide range of disciplines to study John Samuel Mbiti as the father of contemporary African theology and grapple with questions Africans face in the twenty-first century.

Being (the Church) Beyond the South-North-divide

Being (the Church) Beyond the South-North-divide
Author: Andrea Fröchtling
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2003
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9783825866334

This book testifies to the fact that the embodiment of ideas of partnership can occur in many ways. Contributors from South Africa and Germany engage in a search for identities in othernesses and for common ground beyond the divide. Seventeen contributions address a variety of partnership-related issues, ranging from ecumenical hermeneutical foundations to practical applications. Andrea Frchtling is teacher in Celle, Germany. Ndanganeni Phaswana is a bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa-Central Diocese.